Wednesday, September 22, 2010

NOT MEANING TO BEAT A DEAD HORSE...(poor use of words since I own and LOVE horses!!!)

As an additional note to the previous post, here is a letter that one of the students of the school received this week as a result of work she posted on _______.com.

'Good Morning ___________,

We received your letter today and believe you deserve an explanation.

First of all, you were not being singled out for your actions. Our Intellectual Property attorney has filed more than 150 complaints with _______.com regarding improper or unauthorized use of our trademarks. Please understand that we must address trademark and copyright violations or run the risk of losing them to public domain.

This is nothing different than any other owner of a valuable property would do to protect their rights. Examples: If you painted a picture of a "Coke" bottle and titled it "Coca-Cola", you would hear from the Coca-Cola company. If you painted a picture of Mickey Mouse and offered it for sale, you would hear from Disney. Other well known images such as the Chevrolet "Bow-Tie" or the "Nike "Swoosh" would bring the same response.

We don't claim universal ownership of the "fiesta" word. We do, however, own the rights to the word as it relates to ceramic dinnerware.

...For the protection of our valuable brands, we must seek out and attempt to stop those who would profit from the popularity of our brands without our knowledge or authoriztion.